Blogger Rita Ballou took the Texas/Red Dirt Music Scene by storm in February 2010 with her controversial website rawhideandvelvet.com. Rita has been described as the "Perez Hilton of Texas Country music" and love her or hate her, she is always entertaining. Rita delivers a snarky, but fresh look on country music, celebrities, reality television and all things pop culture. The rawhideandvelvet website is now not only considered a guilty pleasure must-read for over 60,000 music fans a month, but one of the most respected sources for Texas/Red Dirt information in the genre. Rita is still new to radio, but her satirical essays can be found in Lone Star Music Magazine and her “Rita Rendezvous” columns are featured each month in Best in Texas Magazine. Rita’s “All the Dirt in Red Dirt” news reports can be hear on all the Townsquare Media radio stations throughout Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. Rita's popular recaps of the television shows CMT's Texas Women, Troubadour, Tx and Ray Benson's Texas Music Scene have allowed her to parlay her writing into on-camera work covering such red carpet events as the Country Music Awards and the CMA Fest in Nashville, the Music Fest in Steamboat Springs and the American Country Music Awards in Las Vegas. Rita is very active in The Boot Campaign, an organization that helps raise awareness of the challenges that the military faces when they transition home for war. Rita lives with her husband Wes and two weenie dogs Dolly Parton and Dewey Cox in her hometown of Gatesville, Texas. You can follow Rita on Twitter @rawhidevelvet and on Facebook at Facebook.com/ritaballou
